A survey of major trends in playwriting and performance practice from the late nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth. We will read major playwrights from a variety of national traditions, always considering their works in the context of evolutionary and revolutionary transformations of theatre practice. Artists and movements may include Realism and Naturalism (Stanislavsky, Antoine, Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov, Shaw), the Epic Theatre (Brecht, Piscator), The Theatre of Cruelty (Artaud), the "Absurd," (Beckett, Genet, Pinter) the collectivist avant-garde (Grotowski, Living Theatre, Open Theatre), and more recent playwriting.